Olympic tickets will be charged to your VISA this week

Declined cards will mean cancelled tickets

Charge It The lottery for Olympic tickets was held this week for events where there was more interest than capacity. Photo by justa jeskova, www.coastphoto.com

Make sure you have room on your VISA for your 2010 Olympic
tickets as the charges could go through as early as this week.

Buyers should have been notified by e-mail by Dec. 10 what
tickets — if any — they managed to get.

With 120 of 170 events oversubscribed it is likely that most
buyers will not get all the tickets they want.

A lottery was held last weekend to determine who would get
tickets to the oversubscribed events.

Ticket buyers who participated in the initial ticket
request period,
which closed Nov. 7, will also have the exclusive right to buy any
remaining Olympic tickets on a first-come, first-served basis from Dec. 12 to
22.

Any tickets remaining after this exclusive period will go on
sale to
the public in mid-2009. VANOC will begin selling tickets to the Paralympic
Winter Games on May 6.

"We are so pleased by the overwhelming interest shown by
Canadians in requesting tickets to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and we share
in their excitement as they wait to find out what tickets they have
received," said Caley Denton, vice president, ticketing and consumer
marketing for VANOC.

"This will really drive home the realization for Olympic
fans that we are now only about 14 months away from hosting one of the most
anticipated events in the world."

Potential buyers should make sure there is room on their VISA
for their ticket requests because if the card is declined the tickets request
will be cancelled.

In the meantime, winter sports fans who missed out on tickets,
or who
cannot wait until 2010 to check out their favourite Olympic-calibre athletes,
will have a number of chances to see them in action at sport events in 2009.
These events, to take place at 2010 Winter Games venues, will be a great deal
as many of them will be free. Others will have tickets on sale for between $5
and $40 for single-day. Check out
www.vancouver2010.com for more information.

Canadian residents have requested more than $345 million in
tickets to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games — 4 1/2 times the first phase of
ticketing for the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games ($75 million over
nine weeks).

The sold out sessions include the Opening and Closing
Ceremonies, figure skating, short track speed skating, speed skating, and men's
ice hockey from the quarter-finals onward.

VANOC expects to generate $232 million in revenue from ticket
sales both in Canada and internationally.

Ticket prices range from $25 for biathlon and cross-country
skiing to $1,118 for the opening ceremonies.